Australia:Shooting the Gayle-farce breeze "You’re sick of hearing the kind of reaction generated by Chris Gayle’s sideline chat up of Mel McLaughlin on Monday night? I’m sick of it too. Been sick of it for 32 years and counting. "

12 January, 2016

I’m not here to eulogise. Millions have done that already and they’re all right. I just want to recognise Bowie’s brilliant media manipulation even in his absence.

It’s well known that during what would become his final tour in 2004, Bowie suffered a serious heart scare. After that, he went extremely quiet. There was an appearance at David Gilmour’s Albert Hall Concert, a guest part in Ricky Gervais’s Extras, and then… nothing.

For want of further information, we assumed he was in seriously poor health. Unlike many of his contemporaries, it was unusual to go for more than a couple of years without a new Bowie album. After forty years of redefining his image, he was now leaving it to us to define his image. We filled in the gaps as best we could.

Then, just on three years ago (was it really that long ago already?) he surprised us with a new album, The Next Day. The lead single, the introspective Where Are We Now? had Bowie looking and sounding extremely frail, which went some way to confirming our suspicions that he wasn’t at all well. However, the rest of the album rocked like a beast in places. He certainly looked ten years older in the videos but aside from that, he seemed fine.

To be honest, The Next Day was not quite the work of genius it was greeted as. It was a fine Bowie album for sure, but if the exact same album had been released in 2005, when a new Bowie album might have been due, critics would probably have said, ‘Meh.’ By 2013, the world was so thankful that he was alive and well that five-star reviews were guaranteed and it became his highest charting album in decades. Well played, Dave! Well played.

While The Next Day was fairly standard Bowie, the new single that come with the cheekily titled 2014 compilation Nothing Has Changed was something different entirely. A 7-minute experimental jazz track called Sue (or in a season of crime) showed that Bowie was still interested in uncharted musical territory.

The release of ★ indicated that his return was complete. The Next Day was not a one-off. Bowie was back and ready to push the boundaries even further.

And then he goes and dies on us. Like a real-life Ziggy who implodes at the height of his powers, he left us. Many of us feared he had been dying for years, and just when we were starting to believe he wasn’t, he did.

It was described as an 18-month battle with cancer, which means the diagnosis would have come well after The Next Day, but there would surely have been illness before that. Perhaps he really was as sick as we feared for the last ten years, or maybe it came up suddenly. We may never know and it’s none of our business anyway. We never really knew who David Bowie was. That was all part of his genius. In the final decade, his mystique has become self-perpetuating and he just left it to us to define his persona.

Turn and face the strange changes...Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom? I ain’t got the power any more...Knowledge comes with death's release...There’s a Starman waiting in the sky... ‘It’s time we should be going...’Ashes to ashes... And I’m gone, like I’m dancing on angels...Where are we now? Look up here, I’m in Heaven...

But I think the best one to remember is the line from Ashes to Ashes:I’m happy, hope you’re happy too

Between Jamie Briggs, Chris Gayle and Hamish McLachlan, there has been a lot of talk about what is appropriate behaviour between men and women doing their jobs.

Predictably, this has led to a bunch of would-be contrarians whose emotional development ceased some time before 1985 to complain about their favourite straw-man, “political correctness.” They will complain that you can’t even give a woman a compliment, or a friendly peck on the cheek (which may or may not be a euphemism for sucking on her neck) any more.

For those who need to be told, here’s a quick and easy way for men to tell if their behaviour towards women is acceptable or not:

Just think* about what you’re tempted to say to or do with the woman, and imagine you were saying or doing it to a man. Would it get you punched? Would it at least be socially awkward? If the answer is Yes, then DON’T DO IT! Don’t even think about doing it unless it’s been made perfectly clear that such an approach would be welcome. Here’s another hint: it’s not perfectly clear that it will be welcome just because someone is female and breathing.

Some people will say that if it were a woman doing the same thing to a man, then it would not be a problem. It’s true that it’s easier and more acceptable for a woman to offer a man a kiss on the cheek or a friendly hug in a wider range of situations. Is this a double standard?

Damn right it’s a double standard!

But if you want to talk about double standards, let’s look at the other side of the coin. Men get to walk from a bistro to their car after dark without having to worry about whether they might be raped. Men don’t have to consider contraception even if they’re not sexually active, just in case the worst happens.

If you want to moan about double standards, there’s your starting point. Once we have stamped out sexual violence for a generation or two, then that friendly hug or peck (if that really is all you intend) might be taken in the spirit in which it’s offered.

09 January, 2016

It’s just over a week into 2016 and we are already well ahead of schedule on our production of stupid.

Today’s stupid was produced by Malcolm Knox where he slapped on the literary equivalent of black-face with the intention of teaching West Indian cricketer Chris Gayle a thing or two about prejudice.

I’ll give Mr Knox the benefit of the doubt that his column was well intentioned, in the same way that the millennial who mansplained how to do feminism better in New Matilda was. Both are cases of editors going for controversy over responsible commentary. Unfortunately, Knox’s point could easily have been made in a couple of sentences.

In summary, Mr Knox seems to be saying that Mr Gayle (who I have only known of for a day longer than I’ve known of Knox), being a black Jamaican, ought to know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of prejudice – which is casual racism in itself. He then rattles off every Jamaican stereotype in the book, in a way that seems to expect Mr Gayle to say, “Thanks, boss! I get it now.” In a spectacular rhetorical own-goal, he not only claims the white male privilege of being the only type of person to not experience prejudice, but also explaining it to those who do on behalf of those who do.

So, for those who need to be told, here’s a handy guide:

People of any race have the potential to be sexist.
People of any gender have the potential to be racist.
People of any race or gender have the potential to be homophobic.
People of any sexuality have the potential to be racist or sexist.
People of any religion or non-religion have the potential to be racist, sexist and homophobic.

In short, bigotry is not the sole domain of white males.

The “how would you like it?” angle is a fair point, but Malcolm Knox lays it on with a shovel and sounds like he’s enjoying it way too much. Many people will have decided to stop reading long before he gets to the point. Yes, it was ironic, but as they said in Drop the Dead Donkey, just because you know it’s crap doesn’t stop it being crap. And it comes from someone who has probably never been told he’s doing privileged white male wrong. Way to turn a douche into the victim, Malcolm!

About Me

Computer tutor, IT handyman, presenter of Strawberry Fields Radio, occasional songwriter and musician, and writer of some notes.
Here you will find my thoughts on music, politics, music DVDs and life in general.
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By the way, if anyone is wondering, since it’s an abbreviation of web-log, ’blog should be spelt with an apostrophe, like ’phone.